.........Wallaby combines all of your existing credit cards onto one card and then decides which of your credit card accounts to route your transactions to based on where you can get the most frequent flyer miles or CashBack bonuses............

samiam68 said: Clever idea, but how does it handle rotating categories, such as Chase Freedom?

The video on the site talks about rotating categories, and the fact that it accounts for them when routing transactions to the appropriate credit card.

beatme

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 2:24p

ironfist99 said: The website shows a picture of the wallaby "debit" card. I'm wondering when this is swiped, if it shows up as debit. Could be very beneficial for places that offer lower debit rates.

Bigger question, can we use it to get Cash Back when buying at the grocery store?

Zaos

Shopaholic Member

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 2:45p

The only way this works and to preserve the rewards for categories as advertised is to present different card numbers when swiped. Thus, kinda like the programmable mag stripe the associations were showing off a couple years back.

beatme said: ironfist99 said: The website shows a picture of the wallaby "debit" card. I'm wondering when this is swiped, if it shows up as debit. Could be very beneficial for places that offer lower debit rates.

Bigger question, can we use it to get Cash Back when buying at the grocery store?

Hmmm... $50 a year. You'd think the data they'd be mining like Envaulted tried to do would cover that. Then again, I'd consider it if it was safe and effective (I bet I've blown more than $50 a year by not having the right rotating category card on me at the right time).

Also curious about tie-breakers (or if like 5 Thank you Reward points >=< 5% CashBack), if it knows you're about to hit max rewards, it the credit card companies are somehow going to get mad about it, etc.

Dawgswin

Serene Member

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 4:47p

nick555 said:

.by doesn't mean that the site is run by some criminal organization in Belarus. They probably chose .by because it fits in nicely with their site name, instead of going for wallaby.com

Welllll, using an easy way of identifying your brand and product (TV station) is a bit different than representing yourself as being in another country. It begs the question why they're in Belarus....or appear to be in Belarus.

mattun

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 5:06p

I'd hope once they got out of Beta that they'd acquired wallaby.com from the Florida hang gliding company. Everybody is going to be uneasy or won't find www.walla.by.

lampy2k4

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 5:13p

The trend of using domain names from unstable countries (like .ly which is Libya) is somewhat bizarre - but probably not a deal-breaker.

I'm more interested in the mechanics of how it is going to work - how do they redirect to the actual card? How do chargebacks work?

imbatman

Nerdy Member

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 5:14p

I signed up with a spam email. If I can get in for free (free for life to first 1000, free for a year for first 5000) maybe I'll try adding a card to it...maybe.it'll be interesting to see what happens I guess?Or I could just do what I do now and rotate my cards when I need to. It's not too hard to maximize rewards on your own...

GermanExpat

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 5:16p

Would be nice to get one for my wife so I don't have to remind her which card to use at the moment.

mattun

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 5:18p

What's hard is getting your wife to remember which card to use. I'm going to miss the AARP card.

Dynastar454

Senior Member

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 6:27p

Some credit card companies get a little upset if you use their card for nothing but the bonus. I'm thinking specifically of Chase here, there have been reports of Chase closing ALL Chase accounts when folks use the Ink Bold 5% Office Supplies category too much.

77Rus

Broke Member

posted: Jun. 26, 2012 @ 10:05p

The most unusual thing about .by domain zone is the fact that those domain names are managed by The Operative-analytical center of the Republic of Belarus that is controlled by Belorussian KGB.

nick555 said: It begs the question why they're in Belarus....or appear to be in Belarus.

They aren't in Belarus. They don't appear to be in Belarus. The IP for http://www.walla.by/ is 67.221.37.12 -> Peak Web Hosting, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, USA.

Will sign up at least on the off chance that this is going to be a debit card. Its not technically feasible for the card to communicate and decide at a POS which number to spit out, so they must be working the magic behind the scenes via a third party... I guess that doesn't rule out the possibility of it identifying itself as a credit card though? Worst case scenario it just does what it's supposed to do...

mattun

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 1:11a

Why wouldn't it technically be feasible? My guess is it somehow works like generated temporary virtual numbers (like Discover and Citi had). But instead it's the second stage (which the credit card is chosen from a lookup table) where the CC changes instead of the first (the disposable number).

BrianGa

Posting Under the Influence

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 6:25a

No purchase protection, extended warranty, etc...right?

ScreamingDaisy

Dismembered Member

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 6:45a

Sounds like an awesome service. Curious about how they'll actually get it to work though. What's the incentive for the credit card issuers to play along?

ryoung81

Senior Member

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 7:13a

Yeah, I'd like to see a pretty detailed behind the scenes explanation, probably more info than they want to give out as they are a startup. I think they can get traction as places like Mint have, although Mint only has "read only" access to my accounts, they can't actually make charges. That's what makes me a little apprehensive from a security standpoint. Although, if this catches on I see them getting acquired by a Quicken or some other larger company pretty quickly.

Interesting concept, I also vote for not having to remind my wife which card to use (which doesn't work either, because she doesn't listen).

mespin

Ancient Member

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 7:47a

I can imagine it being a headache the day your card is declined. Someone at Wallaby will need to figure out where in the chain things went wrong. And if it was a decline from the credit card issuer, after figuring out which credit card it was routed to, someone will need to explain to the credit card CSR that you don't have the original credit card in your possession -- you were just using a Wallaby card.

talljay

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 7:49a

I'll stick with my app, thanks.

ryoung81

Senior Member

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 8:21a

On a side note, if contactless payment ever takes off, couldn't an app on your phone do this exact same thing. Tell the app where you are purchasing, and it presents the appropriate card. a la google wallet of the future?

So my question is what if they end up charging to say AMEX, but it turns out the merchant you swiped at only takes visa/mastercard? Do you get declined at the point of sale and then have to pull out another card?

elektronic

Senior Member - 1K

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 12:18p

futhey said: nick555 said: It begs the question why they're in Belarus....or appear to be in Belarus.

They aren't in Belarus. They don't appear to be in Belarus. The IP for http://www.walla.by/ is 67.221.37.12 -> Peak Web Hosting, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, USA.

Will sign up at least on the off chance that this is going to be a debit card. Its not technically feasible for the card to communicate and decide at a POS which number to spit out, so they must be working the magic behind the scenes via a third party... I guess that doesn't rule out the possibility of it identifying itself as a credit card though? Worst case scenario it just does what it's supposed to do...

I would try this carefully - depending on if the debit transaction posts as a Cash Advance to the card. It would be awesome if you could use it to process your fidelity AMEX as a debit card.

ajkghemee

Senior Member

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 2:11p

i have no clue how this will work. but i signed up just in case because it'll be awesome for me if it works. i carry around 5 cc's right now..

ajkghemee said: i have no clue how this will work. but i signed up just in case because it'll be awesome for me if it works. i carry around 5 cc's right now..

i'm going to be pretty wary about giving them my info tho..

If they are just going to require CC numbers, then what's the big deal? All my CC have $0 Fraud liability, now I wouldn't give them my debit card number...

ryoung81

Senior Member

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 3:23p

Does the fraud guarantee extend if you give out your CC # to third parties though? Most of those guarantees have limitations in them I think.

edit: on further thought, it's unlikely they even know I would think. Probably a non-issue since we give our CC# out to every merchant with whom we use it.

tante

Addicted Member

posted: Jun. 27, 2012 @ 4:31p

what is so hard about trying to figure out what card to use? It is the one you haven't met the required minimum to get the signup bonus? If you don't have a card like that in your wallet, it is time for a new churn.

chantspel said: So my question is what if they end up charging to say AMEX, but it turns out the merchant you swiped at only takes visa/mastercard? Do you get declined at the point of sale and then have to pull out another card?

Good question, I'm wondering the same. I'm assuming that it will know NOT to route to AMEX, at least that's how I would create a program like this.

I can't imagine how they would do this except through some kind of routing program that charges the actual card number to the merchant. Otherwise, Wallaby is gonna have a lot of headaches when they see the chargebacks rolling in.

At least some good news for WallabyNot necessarily. Visa & Mastercard may be playing hardball with the reporting requirements & interchange fees they are putting on pass-through providers like this. May be why Google decided to can the idea.

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